The Influence of Religiously and Scientifically Framed Messages on Agreement with Water Use Restrictions

John M. Clements
Additional contact information
John M. Clements: College of Medicine, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI 48859, USA

Social Sciences, 2016, vol. 5, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: Recent droughts in 2012 and 2013 have increased attention to water use issues in the United States. Cities, government agencies, and environmental nonprofit organizations use scientifically-framed messages to advocate for water conservation. In addition, some religious organizations use messages based on religious teachings to promote water conservation. Because approximately 70% of the U.S. public reports some religious affiliation, it is important to investigate the influence of religious and scientific messages for promoting water conservation. I report the results of an experiment that examines how scientifically- and religiously-framed messages influence attitudes about water use restrictions. I found that Christians were no more or less likely to agree with a policy calling for water use restrictions than non-Christians and non-religious people. However, a Christian religious message negatively influenced agreement with water use restrictions in the entire sample—and in a Christian subsample. Results suggest that religiously framed messages may not increase environmental concern.

Keywords: water use restrictions; structural equation modeling; messaging; religion; science; drought (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/5/4/76/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/5/4/76/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:5:y:2016:i:4:p:76-:d:83513

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().